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Today's WSJ Scare Quotes

As a longtime fan of the Wall Street Journal editorial page's promiscuous use of scare quotes, I enjoyed this passage in today's column by Kimberly Strassel:

So it only aids the White House when "anonymous" Republican members—annoyed that they must have this debate—gripe to the press that Mr. Ryan doesn't "speak" for them.

As I explained in my column about this, the Journal's style of using scare quotes is not merely to signal skepticism about the accuracy of the term -- Strassel, I presume, does not dispute that the Republicans who withheld their name from news accounts are actually "anonyomous" -- but to signal a generalized disdain for whoever uses the terms. It's one of the journalism conventions I cherish most deeply.